Oracle DBA/APPS DBA

11g New Features - Interval Partitioning

2007-11-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

Interval Partitioning: This new feature in table partition fully automates the partition creation for range. i.e new partitions will be created when they are needed. By defining the interval criteria, the database knows when to create new partitions for new or modified data. Interval partitioning is an extension of range partitioning which instructs the database to automatically create partitions of a specified interval when data inserted into the table exceeds all of the existing range partitions. You must specify at least one range partition. The range partitioning key value determines the high value of the range partitions, which is called the transition point, and the database creates interval partitions for data beyond that transition point. The lower boundary of every interval partition is the non-inclusive upper boundary of the previous range or interval partition. For example, if you create an interval partitioned table with monthly intervals and the transition point at January 1, 2007, then the lower boundary for the January 2007 interval is January 1, 2007. The lower boundary for the July 2007 interval is July 1, 2007, regardless of whether the June 2007 partition was already created. Cheers Vignesh

11g New Features - Security

2007-11-11T08:39:00.000-08:00

Kerberos Cross Realm Support: This feature updates the Oracle Kerberos implementation to support cross realm authentication. Now a Kerberos principal in one realm can provide authentication to a principal in another realm. The benefit of this feature is that it makes Kerberos a more viable alternative for customers seeking strong authentication without the overhead of managing certificates and public key infrastructure (PKI). SYSDBA Strong Authentication: All connections to the database can now use strong authentication, including those made as SYSDBA and SYSOPER. Oracle has supported strong authentication through PKI, Kerberos, and Radius since Oracle8i for all connections to the database except those connections made as SYSDBA or SYSOPER. This feature completes Oracle support for strong authentication by extending the strong authentication feature to connections as SYSDBA and SYSOPER. Tablespace Encryption: Tablespace encryption is an enhancement to the Oracle Advanced Security Transparent Data Encryption solution. Using tablespace encryption, customers can encrypt an entire tablespace, encrypting all data within the tablespace. When the database accesses the tablespace, the relevant data blocks are transparently decrypted for the application. Secure by Default - Audit By Default : This feature automatically configures the database for auditing and turns on auditing for specific events such as database connections. Oracle has turned on some auditing settings by default to help customers better track connections to the database. Built-in Password Complexity Checker: This feature builds into the database the password complexity routine that is documented in the Oracle Database Security Guide. This built-in functionality can be easily turned on to guarantee that complex passwords are used when setting or resetting a password Fine-Grained Access Control on Network Call-outs from the Database: The packages UTL_TCP, UTL_INADDR, UTL_HTTP, UTL_SMTP, and UTL_MAIL allow Oracle users to make network callouts from the database using raw TCP or using higher level protocols built on raw TCP. Until now, when the granularity of a privilege is simply execute on each package, there has been no way to allow a user access to just a list of specified internet hosts. The new package DBMS_NETWORK_ACL_ADMIN allows fine-grained control using ACLs implemented by XML DB. This feature enables the DBA to carefully control which internet hosts Oracle users can access using the supplied PL/SQL packages. Cheers Vigneswaran

11g New Features - Performance

2007-11-11T08:32:00.000-08:00

Direct NFS Client: This features implements NFS client as part of Oracle Database kernel. The primary benefits of this feature are improved performance and manageability. The Direct NFS Client improves I/O performance by incorporating Oracle-specific optimizations and eliminating the additional overhead traditionally found in operating system kernel mode implementation of NFS protocol. In addition, it simplifies configuration by eliminating the need to manually tune most of the NFS client parameters. Intelligent Cursor Sharing: This feature helps determine whether a cursor will be shared. For example, instead of blindly reusing an existing cursor with its plan, the optimizer takes ranges of safe values into account when evaluating cursor sharability. Cursor sharing has been enhanced to a more sophisticated sharing model. This enables you to leverage cursor sharing more commonly while preserving bind variable specific plan optimizations for shared statements. Enhanced Partition Pruning Capabilities: Partition pruning now uses bloom filtering instead of subquery pruning. While subquery pruning was activated on a cost-based decision and consumed internal (recursive) resources, pruning based on bloom filtering is activated all the time without consuming additional resources. The performance of partition pruning has been enhanced. Furthermore, partition pruning will be automatically activated for every join with a partitioned object. Cheers Vigneswaran

11g New Features - Utilities

2007-11-11T08:20:00.000-08:00

Compressed Dump File Sets : Data Pump provides the ability to compress the metadata of a dump file set, which can shrink the dump files by 10-15%. In this release, Data Pump adds the ability to compress the entire dump file set, including data and metadata. This feature lets you specify compression for metadata, row data, or the entire dump file set. Data Pump API Enhancements : The Data Pump API has been enhanced to allow individual worker processes to be restarted after a failure without terminating the Data Pump job. This enhancement improves availability when using the parallel capabilities of Data Pump. The new DATA_REMAP API allows you to specify transformations to be applied to data during export or import. This can be useful when you need to obfuscate sensitive data while retaining its data type, structure, or format which may be needed when moving data from a production system to a test environment. Database Upgrade/Downgrade Enhancements : The pre-upgrade information utility has improved resource estimations, and the post-upgrade status tool has improved error message generation and display. Over the past releases, improvements have been made to simplify both manual upgrades and upgrades done using the Database Upgrade Assistant (DBUA). This feature further reduces the complexity of database upgrades and gives DBAs more information they can use to determine whether their database upgrade was successful. Oracle Data Pump External Table Enhancement: In 10g releases of Data Pump, a row error in an external table caused the entire table load to abort, requiring you to reload the table. This feature ensures that a row error does not cause a table load to abort, thus saving load time. SQL*Plus BLOB Support: This feature allows you to verify the contents of BLOB columns. Cheers Vignesh Bala

11g New features : Application Developement

2007-11-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

Client-Side Query Cache This feature enables caching of query result sets in client memory. The cached result set data is transparently kept consistent with any changes done on the server side. Benifit: This improves perfomance of application. I mean avoids round trip by sending query and fetching data again since cached. Also improves CPU utilization by avaoind second exection time. OCI Client Session NLS Character Set Status Information This new feature adds client session NLS and character set information to the V$SESSION_CONNECT_INFO and GV$SESSION_CONNECT_INFO views. Benifit : This enhancement provides DBAs with access to client-side session character set information for all clients. This information is especially useful in troubleshooting problems. Cheers Vignesh Bala

Oracle 11g New Features

2007-11-01T01:44:00.000-07:00

Active data gaurd ------------------- Oracle Active Data Guard enables read-only access to a physical standby database for queries, sorting, reporting, web-based access, etc., while continuously applying changes received from the production database. Oracle Active Data Guard also enables the use of fast incremental backups when offloading backups to a standby database, and can provide additional benefits of high availability and disaster protection against planned or unplanned outages at the production site. Looks nice. But needs special licence. :) Oracle Advanced Compression— with Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition—Helps to manage growing amounts of data (that on average are tripling every couple of years) in a cost effective manner. Oracle Advanced Compression compresses any type of data, including structured and unstructured data such as documents, images, and multimedia, as well as network traffic and data in the process of being backed up. As a result, Oracle Advanced Compression helps you use resources more efficiently and lower storage costs. i feel this is good for performance. Cheers Vignesh Bala

Oracle 11g Launch in Middle East Cities

2007-11-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

Oracle 11g Launch in Middle East Cities --------------------------------------- Register for the Oracle Database 11g launch near you !!! Find out more about Oracle's Maximum Availability Architecture and how you can benefit by attending the Oracle Database 11g Launch in the Middle East. You'll learn about Oracle's Maximum Availability Architecture blueprint, and how it can help you to: Reduce complexity and risk. Fewer third party components to achieve required service levels for availability, data protection, performance and scalability. Lower acquisition and maintenance costs. By utilising native Oracle High Availability capabilities and opting for low-cost servers and storage. Improve service levels while capping management overheads. Oracle Enterprise Grid Control manages production environments at scale. Increase responsiveness. You will get the flexibility to respond fast to changing requirements. Maximise ROI. By enabling all systems in your high availability architecture actively to support production, quality assurance and development activities while eliminating servers that are idle until a failure occurs. To register for your nearest Oracle Database 11g launch and discover how it can give you maximum availability with a minimum of fuss, click here for: Bahrain November 6, 2007 Sheraton Bahrain Abu Dhabi November 7, 2007 Intercontinental Hotel Abu Dhabi Qatar November 13, 2007 Marriott Doha Oman November 17, 2007 Intercontinental Muscat Kuwait November 18, 2007 Crowne Plaza Kuwait Jeddah November 20, 2007 Le Jeddah Meridien Jordan November 21, 2007 Four Seasons Hotel Cheers Vignesh Bala